Shop and Swap

- Alex 2 Comments

South Australians are, generally, terribly parochial. Best football team? The Crows*. Best iced coffee? Farmers Union (FUIC). Best chocolate? Haighs. Best city? Obviously Adelaide. Although we will spend a fair bit of time denigrating our city, woe betide someone who’s not South Australian for doing the same thing! You get the idea.

A couple of weeks ago, local food producer, Spring Gully, went into voluntary administration. The CEO of this 60 year old, family owned South Australian institution pleaded with customers to get out there and support the company’s product.

And South Australians did so in style. The products promptly disappeared from supermarket shelves and, while the company’s future is far from assured, support, and continued support, such as this is a really good start.

Shortly after, Robern Menz (of FruChocs fame, another South Australian icon) produced a “word cloud” of proudly South Australian producers. This promptly went viral.

And on the back of this, we now have the “shop and swap” campaign. The idea is that when you shop, you swap just one item in your trolley for a locally owned and produced product. Perhaps you are buying cordial: swap for Bickford’s. Perhaps you are buying dried pasta: swap for San Remo. Perhaps you are buying milk: swap supermarket own brand or even big brand milk for locally produced milk such as Paris Creek B-D or Fleurieu Milk Co.

The campaign is realistic: just ONE item per shop, every shop. If you can buy more, then that’s great. If we could all buy entirely local products, that would be brilliant. But that’s often an unrealistic goal: sometimes local is artisan so it’s more expensive, sometimes a local alternative just isn’t available. This is all about doing what you can.

There’s a list of companies on its own page. I don’t pretend it’s comprehensive so please, if you know of a champion South Australian food producer who should be include, leave a comment, or drop me an email.

By supporting South Australian companies you support South Australians. These companies employ South Australians directly but also keep others employed through all the industries that support the supply and distribution of food.

Remember – it’s a lot easier to maintain a company than it is to save it!

* Waiting for the flaming on that one!

ANZAC Biscuits

- Alex 2 Comments

ANZAC Biscuits

Today (25 April) is ANZAC Day. Alongside Australia Day it is easily the most important national holiday here. It commemorates the first military action fought by Australian (and New Zealand troops). Australia was only federated in 1901 so when the First World War broke out the nation was a baby. In 1915, Australian and New Zealand troops were deployed to Turkey and they landed at Gallipoli on this day.

In theory, it was going to be a quick strike, but that single campaign was to last eight months and by the end of the year the allied troops had to be evacuated. Over 8000 Australians had been killed.

Today, ANZAC Day commemorates all Australian servicemen and women, and the national holiday and dawn services give everyone an opportunity to reflect on the commitment that those who serve give to their fellow countrymen.

Anyway, history lesson over. Let’s get to the biscuits (note, biscuits, NOT cookies). The story goes that these egg free biscuits were sent to troops by loved ones back in Australia. Food historians may wish to argue this point, and while I am normally a really tedious stickler for facts, in this instance I think we should let accuracy slide and just go with the collective wisdom.

This is my recipe for ANZAC biscuits. It’s not a tried and tested family recipe but one I created back in 2006. It is egg free but not dairy or gluten free. Apologies in advance for the imperial measurements and the mix of volume and weight measurements!

It’s a really simple recipe – so simple in fact that I made these biscuits this afternoon with my toddler.

Just remember – these are ALWAYS biscuits!

Print
ANZAC Biscuits

Ingredients

    Dry Ingredients
  • ¾ cup dessicated coconut
  • ½ cup caster sugar
  • 1 cup oats
  • 1 cup plain flour
  • pinch of salt
    • Wet Ingredients
  • 4 oz unsalted butter
  • 2 tbsp golden syrup
  • 1 tsp bicarb
  • 2 tbsp boiling water

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 180°C (convention).
  2. Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl.
  3. On the stove, melt the butter and the golden syrup. Then add the bicarb and boiling water. The mixture will froth a little.
  4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix well. You may need to add a little extra boiling water.
  5. Make large walnut sized balls of mixture and flatten on baking trays (lined with baking paper). The biscuits will spread as they cook, so ensure you leave ample space between them.
  6. Cook for 10-15 minutes. Less cooking leads to chewy biscuits, more cooking: crunchier biscuits.
  7. Makes approximately 18 biscuits.
https://eatingadelaide.com/anzac-biscuits/

 

Nepenthe Twilight Tasting

- Alex Leave a comment

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disclaimer: I was Nepenthe’s guest at the tasting

date: Friday 5 April 2013

I think we all know I am something of a wine geek (or bore, depending on your point of view, I guess). So when an email arrived inviting me to a special twilight tasting at Nepenthe Wines, in the beautiful Adelaide Hills I was always going to make the effort to attend.

Most wineries can lay claim to some pretty stunning scenery but Nepenthe is especially pretty, with the cellar door sitting on top of a hill overlooking vineyards, the view punctuated by a massive gum tree. But don’t believe me: my guest, who had not been to Nepenthe before, admitted the location had her second guessing her own wedding venue!

This tasting was a one off event by Nepenthe to launch the Autumn “club pack”. Six wines were paired with six different canapés which sounds quite formal. But that wasn’t really the case at all. As guests arrived they were greeted with the Altitude Sauvignon Blanc and, as it was such a beautiful evening, people soon spread themselves out across the cellar door’s verandah and onto the lawn. This meant that I, at least, ended up tasting everything in what was probably the wrong order. The staff ended up pouring quite a few different wines that weren’t on the main list, so it ended up being a great opportunity to try a range of the Nepenthe wines.

The absolute stand out wine of the evening for me was the Altitude Pinot Gris. I do not say this lightly. If you know me, you know that I will avoid Pinot Grigio at pretty much all costs. Pinot Gris and Pinot Grigio are the same grape: one is the French name and one the Italian. However, using the different names on labels is not mere pretension on the part of the winemaker or the marketer. The Italians and the French make the grape into wines of very different styles and here in Australia, the use of the Italian or French name is trying to communicate something of the style to the consumer.

The Italian Pinot Grigio tends to be a light bodied, easy drinking quaffer of a wine. It’s inoffensive, light and refreshing. Understandably, it has many fans and it’s increasingly popular as a by the glass option in pubs and restaurants here in Australia. The French Pinot Gris (most commonly from the Alsace region in eastern France) is a little different: it has a bit of weight, oomph and spice.

The Nepenthe Altitude Pinot Gris delivers on that promise. It has that bit of weight, it certainly has spice, but it retains the acidity that makes it refreshing to drink. It’s interesting and, because we always need a bit of wine jargon – it’s textural. I actually went to a bottle shop the next day and bought a bottle (I was going to buy one on the night but by the I made that decision so had everyone else and there was a queue!).

The warm evening meant that I wasn’t really in a red wine mood, but I didn’t pass up the opportunity to try the 2009 Good Doctor Pinot Noir, and my red wine drinking friend gave a thumbs up to the two Shirazes (Altitude and Gate Block).

I have to mention the food. The catering was by Two Brothers and while I won’t pretend that absolutely every canapé was on song there were a few dishes that were amazing.

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The sweet potato and avocado salsa on rye was amazing. I don’t like sweet potato particularly but this was so creamy and zingy: the balance between sweet potato, avocado and lime was absolutely spot on. They looked perfect and tasted even better. Absolutely the highlight of the canapés for me – testified by the fact that there is no photo because I was too busy eating it!

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The Kerala prawn fritters, served on what looked to be some kind of prawn cracker, were lovely too and the pastry on the kingfish and beetroot tarts was beautifully short and thin (though I did think the quark needed a bit more oomph to it to stand up to, and cut through, the beetroot).

Overall, I thought this was a really lovely event. It was free for Nepenthe’s VIP club members and a really great way of making people feel a bit special and showcasing both the winery and the wines. The numbers were kept low so everything felt very intimate and there was always an opportunity to chat to staff.